Positional contact sensing hands or devices are needed in robots, manipulators, and automation equipment to provide tactile information or artificial intelligence data for optimization of these devices. Such sensing is required to enable a machine to recognize: the orientation and special properties of an object that is about to be grasped: the special properties of an object already grasped: or how the object was grasped. When objects are provided to the tactile system on a random basis, the system should be able to recognize which object of a set of objects was grasped.
While many problems remain in the creation of artificial intelligence apparatus, one of the most compelling problems that remains is the sensing of article positions and orientations by mechanisms, grippers, end effectors or hands.
Examples of prior art in this general art area are as follows:
U.S. Pat. Nos.:
3,418,850 PA1 2,388,966 PA1 2,435,254 PA1 2,508,419 PA1 2,695,518 PA1 3,024,648 PA1 3,093,806.
Periodicals:
"Inside a Robotics Lab: The Quest for Automatic Touch", Technology Illustrated, p. 23, Apr. 22, 1983. PA0 A. K. Bejczy, "AIAA/NASA Conference on `Smart` Sensors", American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, pp. 1-17, Nov. 14-16, 1978. PA0 William Daniel Hillis, "Active Touch Sensing", Massachusetts Institute of Technology, A.I. Memo 629, pp. 1-37, April 1981. PA0 Prof. Leon D. Harmon, "A Sense of Touch Begins to Gather Momentum", Sensor Review, April 1981. PA0 Arthur C. Sanderson and George Perry, "Sensor-Based Robotic Assembly Systems: Research and Applications in Electronic Manufacturing", Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 71, No. 7, pp. 856-871, July, 1983.
This invention advances solutions of the remaining problems.